PART TWO: Two “Orthodox” Christmas Celebrations In UKRAINE: Adiaphorous Or Planned To Be Prejudiced? – JP
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Part One: Two “Orthodox” Christmas Celebrations In UKRAINE: Adiaphorous Or Planned To Be Prejudiced?
Thank you, Father, for taking time the other day to get our conversation about the Schism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy and, in particular, the sudden change in the ecclesiastical calendar there leading to two distinct Christmas celebrations separated by unique dates on the calendar.
Following up on the previous conversation, this reporter would like to ask the following:
(Question II):
2) If the Orthodox in modern day Ukraine, so long part of the Imperial Russian Empire, have always used the Julian calendar for liturgical calculation, why would some Orthodox suddenly use the Gregorian calendar this year? What has the reaction of the faithful been?
HIEROMONK:
Only the schismatic group has changed to the Gregorian calendar. Mostly these people are not that pious. More secular and Ukrainian nationalist. For them, you can celebrate Christmas in August as long as the services are in Ukrainian. They changed due to pressure from the USA government and the European Union, just like what happened before in other countries. The canonical Church remains on the Julian calendar.
Question III
3) Can you outline for the readers what the schism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy entails, who initiated and who promoted it and to what end?
HIEROMONK:
Schisms in the Orthodox Church are taken very seriously. All of true Orthodox Church life involves liturgical services and Holy Communion. When there is a schism, this cannot happen.
The schisms in the Orthodox Church in Ukraine are caused by both arrogance and also foreign intervention. The false “patriarch” Philaret was one of the most Soviet of bishops during the times of communism ruling the former Soviet Union. He went out of his way to please his masters, even calling Christ the first socialist. When the Russian Church had the first free election of a new patriarch in 1990, Philaret was not chosen, due to his scandalous reputation and friendliness to the communists. He therefore decided to start his own church and took advantage of Ukrainian separatism, especially in western Ukraine and had himself declared “patriarch.” This was not recognized by any of the local Orthodox churches. Then there is the issue of the patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomeos, who decided to interfere in church affairs in Ukraine. In this he was supported by the Department of State of the US, who saw this as an opportunity to divide the Church and therefore weaken Russia. At this time, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine paid symbolic adherence to the patriarch of Moscow, although it had been given broad autonomy by the Russian Church when Ukraine obtained independence from Russia.
At first, Bartholomeos hesitated to get involved when he saw how the majority of believers remained faithful to the patriarch of Moscow. He even openly stated that he recognized the new metropolitan of Kiev as the canonical head of the Church in Ukraine. Some background. For centuries, all of the canonical Orthodox churches recognized that the Moscow Patriarchate had jurisdiction over the Ukrainian Church. However, in the 20th century, the patriarchs of Constantinople began a policy of interference in the Russian Church as well as other local churches and pushed forward uncanonical claims to be sort of a papacy of the East. They took advantage of the persecution of the Church under the communists to start schismatic groups in the Baltic republics and Finland. This was done under the auspices of the Western powers, the same policy as of today, which is intended on all fronts to weaken Russian independence.
Ukraine has been the field of intense interference from the West as well as the Vatican since the 10th century, when Kievan Rus adopted Orthodox Christianity. Over the centuries, Ukraine’s borders have been changed according to whoever was in power. What is now western Ukraine was for long periods of time under the control of the Polish, Lithuania, and then the Austro-Hungarian empire. Believers in that area were forced into uniate “churches” under Rome. Eventually, eastern Ukraine reverted back to being part of the Russian empire, and it is here where the Orthodox Church is the majority religion. The Ukrainian language itself is a Russian dialect strongly influenced by Polish. In the Russian empire, as is typical of most countries at the time, many different dialects were spoken, in Great Russia, as well as in other parts of the empire. In the 19th century, the literary Russian language was formed and became the national language of the empire. Even today a large percentage of Ukrainian citizens only speak Russian. Despite the present persecution of everything Russian, it has been discovered that most children in Kiev speak Russian as their first language. The mayor of Kharkov, the largest city in Ukraine after Kiev, recently gave a public speech in Russian and was fined by the Kievan regime. Zelensky himself used to speak Russian at home with his family.
People should wake up in the West to what is going on in Ukraine. The persecution of the largest church is unprecedented in modern European history, and actively supported by the American government. Churches have been locked, turned over to the schismatics, who often do not have enough people to attend services in these churches. In the Kiev Caves monastery, considered to be one of the holiest places of the whole Russian Church, after the monks were expelled, they had a show there with provocative modern art and even dancing in the church. A statue of Empress Catherine the Great, who founded the city of Odessa, was dismantled with the idea of installing a statue of some American gay porno star! Why such a disgrace? It is all the process of stupefying and demoralizing the local population, so that they can better be controlled.